Qu’apprennent les jeunes usagers à propos de Wikipédia ?

International audienceLa très grande majorité des jeunes sont des usagers de Wikipédia. Pour autant, apprennent-ils quelque chose sur cette encyclopédie collaborative par le simple fait de son usage ? Si oui, qu’apprennent-ils ? Nous nous focalisons ici sur l’effet d’une variable assez triviale : le niveau de scolarité des jeunes usagers. Nous avons ainsi mené une enquête par questionnaire auprès de 841 collégiens, lycéens, étudiants de licence et de master. Les résultats montrent que dans l’ensemble, les répondants ont des connaissances informationnelles limitées à propos de l’encyclopédie collaborative. Néanmoins, celles-ci augmentent en fonction du niveau de scolarité et donc, de l’ancienneté et de la fréquence d’usage

A Contractual Approach to Investor-State Regulatory Disputes

International investment arbitral tribunals are increasingly tasked with resolving regulatory disputes. This relatively new form of dispute involves a challenge by a foreign investor to a host state’s generally applicable regulation, enacted in good faith to promote the public interest but resulting incidentally in harm to the investor’s business. Such claims typically invoke the “fair and equitable treatment” standard provided for in the bilateral investment treaty between the host state and the investor’s home state. The dominant view among commentators, and increasingly among the tribunals themselves, is that regulatory disputes should be analyzed within a public law framework, using tools derived from constitutional or administrative law. That means, for example, balancing the investor’s rights and host state’s regulatory concerns as part of a proportionality analysis. I argue that the public law approach is flawed because it requires tribunals to weigh incommensurable values and ultimately to make policy judgments when they lack the expertise and legitimacy to do so. This Article proposes that tribunals instead draw on tools from contract law and theory to approximate what the contracting states intended when they agreed to a fair and equitable treatment standard. The investment treaties themselves give no guidance on how that standard should be applied to regulatory disputes. When courts confront similar gaps in contracts, they do not simply abandon the inquiry into the parties’ intent but instead apply additional tools or principles to form the best possible estimate. The Article explores three specific tools: a default rule approach and two default standards derived from contract law’s analysis of changed circumstances. More generally, I argue that a contractual approach, by focusing tribunals on the contracting states’ intent rather than requiring them to independently assess the substance of a host state’s policy, will facilitate more principled reasoning as well as enhance the tribunals’ legitimacy, and thereby better promote the goals of international investment in the long run

Induced work function changes at Mg-doped MgO/Ag(001) interfaces: Combined Auger electron diffraction and density functional study

The properties of MgO/Ag(001) ultrathin films with substitutional Mg atoms in the interface metal layer have been investigated by means of Auger electron diffraction experiments, ultraviolet photoemission spectroscopy, and density functional theory (DFT) calculations. Exploiting the layer-by-layer resolution of the MgKL23L23 Auger spectra and using multiple scattering calculations, we first determine the interlayer distances as well as the morphological parameters of the MgO/Ag(001) system with and without Mg atoms incorporated at the interface. We find that the Mg atom incorporation drives a strong distortion of the interface layers and that its impact on the metal/oxide electronic structure is an important reduction of the work function (0.5 eV) related to band-offset variations at the interface. These experimental observations are in very good agreement with our DFT calculations which reproduce the induced lattice distortion and which reveal (through a Bader analysis) that the increase of the interface Mg concentration results in an electron transfer from Mg to Ag atoms of the metallic interface layer. Although the local lattice distortion appears as a consequence of the attractive (repulsive) Coulomb interaction between O2− ions of the MgO interface layer and the nearest positively (negatively) charged Mg (Ag) neighbors of the metallic interface layer, its effect on the work function reduction is only limited. Finally, an analysis of the induced work function changes in terms of charge transfer, rumpling, and electrostatic compression contributions is attempted and reveals that the metal/oxide work function changes induced by interface Mg atoms incorporation are essentially driven by the increase of the electrostatic compression effect

Band bending in Mg-colored and O₂-activated ultrathin MgO(001) films

Ultrathin MgO films grown on Ag(001) have been investigated using X-ray and ultraviolet photoemission spectroscopies for oxide films successively exposed to Mg and O₂ flux. Studying work functions and layer-resolved Auger shifts allows us to keep track of band profiles from the oxide surface to the interface and reveal the charge- transfer mechanisms underlying the controlled creation of Mg-induced surface color centers and the catalytic enhancement of O₂ activation. Our results demonstrate that one can intimately probe the catalytic properties of metal-supported ultrathin oxide films by studying the electronic band alignment at interfaces

Universal fluctuations in subdiffusive transport

Subdiffusive transport in tilted washboard potentials is studied within the fractional Fokker-Planck equation approach, using the associated continuous time random walk (CTRW) framework. The scaled subvelocity is shown to obey a universal law, assuming the form of a stationary Levy-stable distribution. The latter is defined by the index of subdiffusion alpha and the mean subvelocity only, but interestingly depends neither on the bias strength nor on the specific form of the potential. These scaled, universal subvelocity fluctuations emerge due to the weak ergodicity breaking and are vanishing in the limit of normal diffusion. The results of the analytical heuristic theory are corroborated by Monte Carlo simulations of the underlying CTRW

The effect of three-dimensional (3D) printing on quantitative and qualitative outcomes in paediatric orthopaedic osteotomies: a systematic review.

Three-dimensional (3D) printing technology is increasingly being utilized in various surgical specialities. In paediatric orthopaedics it has been applied in the pre-operative and intra-operative stages, allowing complex deformities to be replicated and patient-specific instrumentation to be used. This systematic review analyses the literature on the effect of 3D printing on paediatric orthopaedic osteotomy outcomes.A systematic review of several databases was conducted according to PRISMA guidelines. Studies evaluating the use of 3D printing technology in orthopaedic osteotomy procedures in children (aged ≤ 16 years) were included. Spinal and bone tumour surgery were excluded. Data extracted included demographics, disease pathology, target bone, type of technology, imaging modality used, qualitative/quantitative outcomes and follow-up. Articles were further categorized as either 'pre-operative' or 'intra-operative' applications of the technology.Twenty-two articles fitting the inclusion criteria were included. The reported studies included 212 patients. There were five articles of level of evidence 3 and 17 level 4.A large variety of outcomes were reported with the most commonly used being operating time, fluoroscopic exposure and intra-operative blood loss.A significant difference in operative time, fluoroscopic exposure, blood loss and angular correction was found in the 'intra-operative' application group. No significant difference was found in the 'pre-operative' category.Despite a relatively low evidence base pool of studies, our aggregate data demonstrate a benefit of 3D printing technology in various deformity correction applications, especially when used in the 'intra-operative' setting. Further research including paediatric-specific core outcomes is required to determine the potential benefit of this novel addition. Cite this article: EFORT Open Rev 2021;6:130-138. DOI: 10.1302/2058-5241.6.200092

The Persistence Length of a Strongly Charged, Rod-like, Polyelectrolyte in the Presence of Salt

The persistence length of a single, intrinsically rigid polyelectrolyte chain, above the Manning condensation threshold is investigated theoretically in presence of added salt. Using a loop expansion method, the partition function is consistently calculated, taking into account corrections to mean-field theory. Within a mean-field approximation, the well-known results of Odijk, Skolnick and Fixman are reproduced. Beyond mean-field, it is found that density correlations between counterions and thermal fluctuations reduce the stiffness of the chain, indicating an effective attraction between monomers for highly charged chains and multivalent counterions. This attraction results in a possible mechanical instability (collapse), alluding to the phenomenon of DNA condensation. In addition, we find that more counterions condense on slightly bent conformations of the chain than predicted by the Manning model for the case of an infinite cylinder. Finally, our results are compared with previous models and experiments.Comment: 13 pages, 2 ps figure

Piecewise Linear Models for the Quasiperiodic Transition to Chaos

We formulate and study analytically and computationally two families of piecewise linear degree one circle maps. These families offer the rare advantage of being non-trivial but essentially solvable models for the phenomenon of mode-locking and the quasi-periodic transition to chaos. For instance, for these families, we obtain complete solutions to several questions still largely unanswered for families of smooth circle maps. Our main results describe (1) the sets of maps in these families having some prescribed rotation interval; (2) the boundaries between zero and positive topological entropy and between zero length and non-zero length rotation interval; and (3) the structure and bifurcations of the attractors in one of these families. We discuss the interpretation of these maps as low-order spline approximations to the classic ``sine-circle'' map and examine more generally the implications of our results for the case of smooth circle maps. We also mention a possible connection to recent experiments on models of a driven Josephson junction.Comment: 75 pages, plain TeX, 47 figures (available on request

Germline polymorphisms as modulators of cancer phenotypes

Identifying the complete repertoire of genes and genetic variants that regulate the pathogenesis and progression of human disease is a central goal of post-genomic biomedical research. In cancer, recent studies have shown that genome-wide association studies can be successfully used to identify germline polymorphisms associated with an individual's susceptibility to malignancy. In parallel to these reports, substantial work has also shown that patterns of somatic alterations in human tumors can be successfully employed to predict disease prognosis and treatment response. A paper by Van Ness et al. published this month in BMC Medicine reports the initial results of a multi-institutional consortium for multiple myeloma designed to evaluate the role of germline polymorphisms in influencing multiple myeloma clinical outcome. Applying a custom-designed single nucleotide polymorphism microarray to two separate patient cohorts, the investigators successfully identified specific combinations of germline polymorphisms significantly associated with early clinical relapse. These results raise the exciting possibility that besides somatically acquired alterations, germline genetic background may also exert an important influence on cancer patient prognosis and outcome. Future 'personalized medicine' strategies for cancer may thus require incorporating genomic information from both tumor cells and the non-malignant patient genome